Thameslink Services/Timetable from May 20th 2018

[JonathanH]

Brilliant service if you're going to London. You have the typical railway attitude of thinking everyone goes to London, though! Its useless for local journeys, say Purley to Crawley, or Coulsdon South to Earlswood

Realistically how many people want to go by train from Coulsdon South or Merstham to Earlswood? If they do, it is a relatively simple change at Redhill.

The full timetable spreads the stops over a number of trains and offers faster journeys for the majority of travellers - e.g. to London - if the full Thameslink service was running, Purley (at most times of the day) would have quicker journeys to Gatwick than they did before.

If Reigate platform 3 happens for Thameslink trains stopping all stations from Purley, I think you would use the Victoria stopper to run all stations via Redhill (without a split at Redhill) to Gatwick which might bring back the local links.

The stopping services to Reigate are much more important for local connectivity from Purley, Coulsdon South and Merstham than links to Earlswood and Salfords from these stations.

 

[Surreytraveller]

But with an unreliable service, a simple change at Redhill is not a simple change. People would rather have a less frequent service that was reliable, rather than a train every couple of minutes through the Thameslink Core, that as soon as the minorist of issues occurs, disruption is spread far and wide

 

[Sunset route]

Deleted

 

[Minstral25]

Lot's of people used the old Horsham to London Bridge that called at all stations from Purley to Horsham. The replacement Thameslinks skip stop stations making local journeys very difficult. It's not just Purley to Gatwick, but also Coulsdon to Earlswood or Salfords (lots of local employment), or from Earlswood to Crawley. Lot's of inconvenient changes.

The weekend service is appalling along the whole route from Purley thorough Redhill and Horley - what was once a turn up and go service run by Southern is now a difficult plan ahead service from Thameslink.

Thameslink other than if your going into London is an absolute disaster for the Redhill route.

 

[JonathanH]

But with an unreliable service, a simple change at Redhill is not a simple change. People would rather have a less frequent service that was reliable, rather than a train every couple of minutes through the Thameslink Core, that as soon as the minorist of issues occurs, disruption is spread far and wide

I don't think you are right about what people want regarding the Thameslink core - yes, people want a reliable service, but they also want to go from their station to their chosen destination.

A case in point is the service offered at weekends - this weekend with Victoria closed, the only train from Redhill to London is the half-hourly Thameslink service to London Bridge - the 12-car 700s have more than enough capacity for the number of people who want to get from Redhill to London - on what you suggest that could quite easily suffice as the only service to London every Saturday - but it doesnt go to Victoria, it doesn't go to St Pancras, it doesn't stop at Purley, it isn't non stop from Redhill to East Croydon - so different people do want the frequency to provide all of those different objectives.

Multiply that up across the different routes that all have to have a train to St Pancras and Victoria and you end up with the desire for frequent trains through the Thameslink core - not just one half-hourly service from Brighton to Bedford and one from Sutton to Luton.

 

[4-SUB 4732]

The new timetable is incredibly poor. All trains should stop at Purley, Coulsdon and Redhill (aka the Gatwick Airport and Horsham services); with a view to a Merstham call on the Gatwick Airport. The Gatwick services also need to stop at Earlswood and Salfords calls as anybody who is coming from the Bedford route will use a ‘fast’ Gatwick (to Brighton), and therefore the Bedford - Gatwick can be decelerated. The Peterborough - Horsham should be quicker both for those coming from north of the river; and also to allow the folk from the likes of Horley, Crawley and Horsham to have a faster train up to town.

 

[carriageline]

The point is that under conventional signalling, the second train can't be signalled into the platform until the first train has completely left the platform and cleared the overlap of the starting signal.

Under ATO you can potentially have the second train start to move into the the platform while the back of the first train is still leaving the platform, reducing the distance between trains and increasing the capacity of the line.

Incorrect. Conventionally, they can follow the train once the first train has cleared the overlap of the mid platform signal.

The block markers enable the train (as you correctly said) to follow the train earlier, closer and quicker (with the aide of ATO)

 

[Surreytraveller]

The Horshams should stop at Purley, as that is a major station, with connections from the Tattenham and Caterham branch lines for people who actually want to go beyond Gatwick. I can understand why they don't, as they use the fast lines and would hold up other trains.

 

[387star]

The Horshams should stop at Purley, as that is a major station, with connections from the Tattenham and Caterham branch lines for people who actually want to go beyond Gatwick. I can understand why they don't, as they use the fast lines and would hold up other trains.

Two horshams a day do stop Purley and the last down Peterborough does too

I think Merstham could be removed from the Peterborough service off peak as the station is deserted

The Peterborough service is also very slow between Horley and Ifield.. note the down faygate stoppers in the PM peak skip Horley

The fewer stations the Peterborough service stops at the better

 

[387star]

Gatwick terminators stop at Purley..

Peak AM Gatwick to Peterborough services and a limited number of other peak and late horsham/Peterborough services do stop earlswood and salfords

Those are deserted off peak

 

[387star]

The 2054 off Peterborough currently stops earlswood and salfords not so from December?

 

[Surreytraveller]

Gatwick terminators stop at Purley..

Peak AM Gatwick to Peterborough services and a limited number of other peak and late horsham/Peterborough services do stop earlswood and salfords

Those are deserted off peak

Yes. But the Horshams don't. The Horsham trains go further than Gatwick, which means someone travelling from Tattenham to Crawley has an additional change

 

[JonathanH]

Yes. But the Horshams don't. The Horsham trains go further than Gatwick, which means someone travelling from Tattenham to Crawley has an additional change

Walk from Coulsdon Town to Coulsdon South - probably quicker than going via Purley anyway.

Again, how many people really want to make these journeys in the overall scale of things - GTR will have done analysis of how many travellers there are from Tattenham to Crawley and seen that it really isn't very many.

 

[tsr]

Journeys from Tattenham Corner and Caterham to stations between Coulsdon South and Horsham (and vice versa) are very few in numbers indeed. Purley to Gatwick is probably the biggest flow affected by skip-stopping on the Thameslinks.

Even Salfords, which is perhaps the smallest station to be a viable destination for a reasonable number of local rail commuters, doesn’t have all that many people travelling from Purley and the smaller local stations; weirdly, the bulk of the passengers come from the Redhill-Tonbridge line.

Crawley has many more commuters but still doesn’t have many travelling from Coulsdon / Merstham and only a tiny number from the Tat / Cat branches *.

(* Don’t forget those two branches are renowned for being completely empty off-peak and for contra-peak flows; their entire livelihood is commuting traffic, including schoolkids, of course.)

 

[Minstral25]

A lot of people make these type of short journeys all through the day. They are incredibly disadvantaged by the skipping of certain trains. For the last 25 plus years that I have known there has been an all stations from Purley to Horsham service, originally from Victoria and more recently London Bridge. Taking it away has meant a lot of convenient journeys have gone.

Yes there are far more people heading to London but these journeys are important for local communities. There are far more of these journeys going on than people realise.

Anyway the Peterborough to Horsham's jump Purley, Earlswood and Salfords to enable a sufficient turn round time at Horsham and has nothing to do with making Horsham services faster. The analysis actually said a lot of journeys would be disrupted.

The new timetable seems to be fine for stations to London Bridge with a direct service but the Victoria service has been ruined, with no hope of fixing in the near term. Also the fourth most popular destination in passenger numbers from Purley to Horley is Brighton, to which there are no longer any through trains too which disproves the idea that GTR actually modelled based on Passenger numbers.

 

[Surreytraveller]

Walk from Coulsdon Town to Coulsdon South - probably quicker than going via Purley anyway.

Again, how many people really want to make these journeys in the overall scale of things - GTR will have done analysis of how many travellers there are from Tattenham to Crawley and seen that it really isn't very many.

GTR do analysis to produce the results they want to produce. A bit like public consultations - a tick box exercise that isn't really a consultation.

 

[Bedpan]

Yes exactly.
There are over a dozen different timetables listed effective from 10th December.
Yet none display how to get between:
Bedford to Brighton.
Flitwick to Gatwick Airport
Luton to Haywards Heath
Harpenden to Littlehampton

It's a fairly fundamental oversight not showing services which form the whole purpose of your franchise existance.
Unbelievable !

As I said on#5213, timetable 02 does show all direct traind from Bedford and Flitwick and Luton to Brighton and Gatwick and Haywards Heath. What it doesn't do though is give any clue that some of these trains stop at intermediate stations between Purley and Gatwick, Balcombe, and Wivelsfield to Preston Park inclusive, let alone which trains stop where.

Whatever anyone says it has to be losing them business.

 

[ctrh136]

The new timetable seems to be fine for stations to London Bridge with a direct service but the Victoria service has been ruined, with no hope of fixing in the near term. Also the fourth most popular destination in passenger numbers from Purley to Horley is Brighton, to which there are no longer any through trains too which disproves the idea that GTR actually modelled based on Passenger numbers.

I think the fact that any stop on the Redhill branch adds at least 5 minutes onto a train that would otherwise use the quarry line means it makes sense that there's no trains that go direct between Redhill and Brighton. There would be many more passengers coming from London stations anyway.

 

[JonathanH]

While it is true that skip stopping makes some journeys longer there are others it makes quicker, not just to London. Purley to Redhill and East Croydon to Coulsdon South are both quicker off-peak than they were under the previous timetable because of it

On the subject of the Thameslink timetable from Redhill, the xx09/xx39 Thameslink service calls at Merstham and Coulsdon South rather than running fast to Purley from Redhill like it does off peak. As a consequence it takes 41 minutes to get from Redhill to London Bridge rather than 31 minutes - demand from Redhill, Merstham and Coulsdon South must therefore be focussed on the xx59/xx29 Peterborough trains. Is it really worth these stopping at all three stations? (I appreciate the DfT's specification requires it.) How many people actually catch the Bedford train who have a unconstrained choice of both? Sacrificing the Merstham and Coulsdon South stops and swapping this and the Gatwick / Reigate to Victoria train in the morning peak could go some way to solving the Redhill angst (although I note that the timetable planning rules say platform 2 departure should precede platform 0 from Redhill and this train runs at a good interval to the other services on the Horsham to Three Bridges corridor so it is probably not a desirable change all told).

 

[700007]

How is the weekend leisure Market fareing on Thameslink and Great Northern? Just thought I would ask as on this very forum there seems to be a number of 'Visit Cambridge by train' adverts by GTR.

 

[JB_B]

How is the weekend leisure Market fareing on Thameslink and Great Northern? Just thought I would ask as on this very forum there seems to be a number of 'Visit Cambridge by train' adverts by GTR.

I travel with Thameslink on the BML most weekends - my impresson is that things are certainly busier than they were 3 months ago.

A couple of data-points - yesterday (Sat) I took the 0858 Brighton St Pancras (12-car 700) -declass 1st class was busy but I got a seat - the loading indicator showed standing room only for some of the the standard carriagesl. I continued on the 1042 Kings Cross as far as Ely (8-car 387). That was very busy - I (and many others) had to stand as far as Cambridge.

 

[gingerheid]

How is the weekend leisure Market fareing on Thameslink and Great Northern? Just thought I would ask as on this very forum there seems to be a number of 'Visit Cambridge by train' adverts by GTR.

Personally I wouldn't know as I've stopped going from Cambridge to London by train at the weeke.... oh.

I guess it must have fallen off a cliff, because the previous number of Cambridge - London passengers just wouldn't fit into the current services!

 

[Hadders]

The timetable is reasonably reliable now but the number of trains operating from many stations is disgraceful, particularly on Sundays. This is still affecting passenger numbers from my observations.

 

[jon0844]

Following half term (over two weeks as they were staggered) the weekend is back to being pretty reliable, but I'd still only travel if I absolutely had to. I think confidence may begin to be restored, but with more driver training taking place and Christmas coming up, the weekend is still extremely volatile IMO.

 

[Dore & Totley]

How is the weekend leisure Market fareing on Thameslink and Great Northern? Just thought I would ask as on this very forum there seems to be a number of 'Visit Cambridge by train' adverts by GTR.

Speaking only for myself I used to use them to get to the Emirates from my Mum's at Elstree and Borehamwood but have given up and drive to Oakwood or Cockfosters now.

 

[TheDavibob]

From my position, as someone who does weekend leisure trips Cambridge - London reasonably frequently, I'm generally happy the service will run to time. However, the single hourly fast (and the semifast no longer being a practical option) genuinely makes me think twice, and must affect numbers. There's also the bizarre situation that the Sunday service is somehow better than the Saturday service. What's the reason for the limiited weekend service these days? Given they ran before at twice the frequency, to essentially the same timetable, there can't be direct stock or training issues -- is it simply a refocusing of driving resources to weekdays?

 

[bramling]

Following half term (over two weeks as they were staggered) the weekend is back to being pretty reliable, but I'd still only travel if I absolutely had to. I think confidence may begin to be restored, but with more driver training taking place and Christmas coming up, the weekend is still extremely volatile IMO.

I hardly use the service at weekends, and on the few occasions when I have it's been fairly empty compared to a few years ago - and that's with the reduced service.

The weekend service has been too unpredictable for some time now. Having said that, the A1(M) was farkled today, three separate accidents between Stevenage and Welwyn. Weekends are a total pain on the approach to Christmas <sigh>.

On the subject of GN, I've been having a look through the new timetable. In the week the May timetable is delivered - the main change is the evening additional calls on the fast Cambridge services, which now depart at XX09 and XX39, with the Peterborough 365 'pullman' service being retimed to XX12 in consequence. Apart from that it's just a very small handful of very minor tweaks to timings.

The weekend service remains as per the interim timetable. There's a small change to a late-night Peterborough service, and a couple of minor adjustments to unit diagrams in consequence - but apart from that everything remains the same, with just the odd tweak to timings.

I haven't looked at the inner-suburban service, although it's noticeable there are some 717 diagrams commencing from the off. Naturally time will tell if they materialise in practice. Unless I've missed something this timetable marks the end of 3-car working.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

On the Midland side - the weekday service is pretty solid and off peak loadings are well up and where they should be.

At weekends - north of SAC is poorly served - but the service (as one would expect at this time of year) - is busy enough to get standing on some (12 car) trains.

 

[OwenB]

I used to use the (then) half hourly service from Hatfield to Stevenage (and back) for the football on Saturdays. Now it's just 1 per hour, it means any cancellation would mean missing the match or being home 90 minutes later than catching the 17.10 home, like I did last season. I can't believe the reinstatement of these services will be at least a year in coming.

 

[bhb]

Going back to the Purley thing for this weekend, I think sanity did prevail. The Horsham trains had an extra stop at Purley, though it was only announced at East Croydon, on my train, at least.